Snap Inc’s flagship platform has lost some luster, at least according to one social-media influencer.
Shares of the Snapchat parent company sank 6.1 percent on Thursday, wiping out US$1.3 billion in market value, on the heels of a tweet on Wednesday from US TV personality Kylie Jenner, who said she does not open the app anymore.
“Sooo does anyone else not open Snapchat anymore? Or is it just me... ugh this is so sad,” Jenner tweeted.
Whether it is the demands of her newfound motherhood or the recent app redesign, the testament drew similar replies from her 24.5 million followers.
Wall Street analysts too have begun to notice, citing recent user engagement trends noticed since the platform’s redesign.
Jenner’s tweet was followed late on Thursday by one from Maybelline New York, asking its followers if it should stay on the Snapchat platform. The beauty-product brand owned by Paris-based L’Oreal SA said its “Snapchat views have dropped dramatically,” but it still wanted to connect with its followers.
“Still love you tho snap,” Jenner hedged in a later tweet.
Citigroup Inc analyst Mark May downgraded the stock to sell from neutral earlier this week after seeing a “significant jump” in negative reviews of the app’s redesign.
He expects the reviews could cause user engagement to fall, hurting financial results.
Meanwhile, as the app takes criticism, chief executive Evan Spiegel is poised to become one of the highest-paid US executives for last year, thanks to a US$636.6 million stock grant he got when his company went public.
The Venice, California-based maker of the Snapchat photo-sharing app awarded Spiegel shares equal to 3 percent of the outstanding capital stock when the initial public offering closed in March last year, according to the firm’s annual report filed on Thursday.
He is to receive the shares in increments through to 2020.
China’s economic planning agency yesterday outlined details of measures aimed at boosting the economy, but refrained from major spending initiatives. The piecemeal nature of the plans announced yesterday appeared to disappoint investors who were hoping for bolder moves, and the Shanghai Composite Index gave up a 10 percent initial gain as markets reopened after a weeklong holiday to end 4.59 percent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dived 9.41 percent. Chinese National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Zheng Shanjie (鄭珊潔) said the government would frontload 100 billion yuan (US$14.2 billion) in spending from the government’s budget for next year in addition
Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) suffered its biggest stock decline in more than a month after the company unveiled new artificial intelligence (AI) chips, but did not provide hoped-for information on customers or financial performance. The stock slid 4 percent to US$164.18 on Thursday, the biggest single-day drop since Sept. 3. Shares of the company remain up 11 percent this year. AMD has emerged as the biggest contender to Nvidia Corp in the lucrative market of AI processors. The company’s latest chips would exceed some capabilities of its rival, AMD chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) said at an event hosted by
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
TECH JUGGERNAUT: TSMC shares have more than doubled since ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022, as demand for cutting-edge artificial intelligence chips remains high Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday posted a better-than-expected 39 percent rise in quarterly revenue, assuaging concerns that artificial intelligence (AI) hardware spending is beginning to taper off. The main chipmaker for Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc reported third-quarter sales of NT$759.69 billion (US$23.6 billion), compared with the average analyst projection of NT$748 billion. For last month alone, TSMC reported revenue jumped 39.6 percent year-on-year to NT$251.87 billion. Taiwan’s largest company is to disclose its full third-quarter earnings on Thursday next week and update its outlook. Hsinchu-based TSMC produces the cutting-edge chips needed to train AI. The company now makes more
RSS